Political Order Research Articles

The Supply and Demand of Rebel Governance

Abstract A recent wave of civil conflict scholarship examines rebel governance, the process through which insurgent groups organize local affairs in areas under their control. While current research predominantly focuses on the supply side of rebel governance, the attention given to the demand side has been relatively limited. In this study, we take stock of recent scholarship on the dynamic relationship between rebels and civilians to theoretically explore the supply side of rebel governance and develop a new demand-side typology that captures the key factors influencing civilian preferences regarding the nature of rebel rule. Specifically, we argue that demand for rebel governance is mainly shaped by the interaction between civilians’ perceptions of the state and civilian–rebel compatibility, which we define as civilians’ perceptions of the compatibility of the rebel group with their own values, ideology, identity, and preferred modes of socio-political organization. To illustrate our main theoretical points, we draw upon insights gleaned from multiple insurgencies. Our study significantly enhances our understanding of how rebel–civilian interactions mold the fabric of political order in civil war environments.

Cihatçı Gruplar Arasındaki İdeolojik ve Metodolojik Benzerlikler ve Farklılıklar: Taliban, El-Kaide ve IŞİD

The Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan has generally pleased jihadist groups around the world. The Islamic Emirate was re-established in Afghanistan by the Taliban after the end of the 20-year US occupation when the last US soldier left Kabul on August 30th, 2021. That was seen as a complete "victory" day for many Sunni Jihadist groups around the world. However, it is feared that the Taliban's success will usher in a new era of jihadism in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is feared that more radical organizations inspired by the Taliban will rise against the existing governments in these regions, overthrow them, and rule these countries in line with their ideology. It is also feared that jihadist groups will seek to come to the fore with large-scale global attacks, with al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates expected to pose the biggest threat in this regard. This is because while the Taliban has a regional influence as a structure with territorial sovereignty over Afghanistan and its surroundings, Al-Qaeda and ISIS have defined their sphere of influence on a global scale, and thus have defined their area of struggle as the whole world. However, other sub-jihadist organizations affiliated with these two organizations, which operate regionally, can act on a country and regional basis. Although these groups have weakened in recent years, they are still active. In general, what all three organizations have in common is that they adopt a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam. Accordingly, these organizations, which believe that Islam has moved away from its essence and principles of faith, want Islam to be lived as it was when it first emerged and to interpret Islamic rules purely without adapting them to today's conditions. In other words, they aim to implement a political, economic, and social order based on Islamic rules and principles and want pure Islam to be practiced in all areas of life. They claim that the salvation of humanity can only be achieved by making Islam dominant in all areas of life and that man-made ideologies cause inequality and injustice among people. For this reason, all three organizations believe that social and political life cannot be separated from religious issues and therefore justify using violence for the sake of faith. This is also an essential duty for “true Muslims”. On the other hand, these organizations have a negative belief that those who do not fight for this purpose are “bad Muslims”. In other words, all three organizations see taking over political life as necessary to achieve Islamic life or to make the rules of Islam prevail. On the other hand, these three organizations differ in terms of ideology and methodology to achieve this goal. This study systematically examines the ideological and methodological similarities and differences of these three jihadist organizations and how they differ from each other.

Эффект палладиума: ценности великих держав в эпоху искусственного интеллекта

The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the development of modern great powers against the background of their digital contradictions and value specifics in order to determine scenarios for the development of the future political world order. The methodological lens was the principles of critical discourse analysis of academic literature, comparative analysis of value orientations, as well as the normative basis for the introduction of artificial intelligence technologies in modern great powers – Russia, the USA and China. As a hypothesis, the author suggests the Palladium effect, according to which a great power, being given the opportunity to change the world order based on its interests, will strive for this using modern technologies, appealing to justice and taking into account its own value orientations. The Palladium effect was studied by the author in the context of the analytical verification of the "Thucydides trap". L. Althusser's theory of ideology and a number of theses of modern realism were also taken into account as a conceptual framework. The conclusions indicate that the key to the emergence of an economically and politically profitable digital environment, comfortable for a great power, is its tax residents-digital corporations that develop and distribute digital standards in other countries. In this situation, Russia strategically needs to initiate protectionist measures for its digital corporations, a policy of supporting them abroad, create favorable conditions for public-private partnerships, financing, and attracting venture capital in the field of artificial intelligence technology development in order to preserve its value and digital sovereignty (as forms of state sovereignty). In addition, key trends in the field of AI competition and variants of the axiomachy (value confrontation) of the great powers are identified, and the main scenarios for the evolution of the political world order are proposed – Triplex Mundi, Duplex Mundi and Multiplex Mundi.

The Сoncept of International Discourse Power in China’s Foreign Policy Ideology

As China’s material power strengthens and US-China strategic competition deepens, the concept of international discourse power is becoming increasingly important in China’s foreign policy ideology. Beijing assumes that China’s increased material power has not been translated into international discourse power; in the context of developing US-Chinese rivalry, China is at a disadvantage in terms of its international discourse power, and the persistence of Western “discourse hegemony” in the world is holding back further development of China and the implementation of its national interests. According to many Chinese scholars, the essence of the struggle for international discourse power is the desire to dominate the world order, including its creation, maintenance and revision. Possession of discourse power allows a country to influence the world political and economic order and values, determine the international agenda and thereby acquire greater economic and geopolitical power, as well as occupy leading role in global governance. Increased influence on the world arena is seen in Beijing as closely linked to the strengthening of international discourse power. The article reconstructs the genesis and development of the concept of international discourse power in the Chinese official and academic fields, identifies independence in the Chinese theoretical understanding of this concept and the high applied significance of its research as aimed at finding ways to shape China’s discourse power. The article focuses on the main provisions, logic and argumentation of Chinese scholars in the process of their conceptualization of the phenomenon of international discourse power.

MODERNIZATION CONCEPT AND SOCIAL IMAGINATION: METHODOLOGICAL NOTES

Since its inception, the theory of modernization has undergone so many transformations that it makes sense to speak of a «modernization discourse» rather than a theory and to consider the concept itself from the point of view of social epistemology in conjunction with social imagination. This paper is devoted to substantiating this approach. The concept of modernization is interesting in this regard because it contains not only hermeneutic but also prescriptive elements: by placing society in a broader historical framework of past, present and future, it creates a normative horizon for self-understanding and social transformation. It allows us to imagine our society as a historical whole, to imagine a social ideal and social development as a path towards it. At the same time, it appeals to the images of the social imagination - the social imaginary, depending on the context. A separate question, therefore, is what semantic load this concept receives when it is adopted by a different socio-cultural and political context. Such research could help to understand the internal logic of political processes in a society and its destiny. The paper consists of three subsections: the first is devoted to an overview of theories of modernization and their transformation under the influence of social epistemology; the second deals with the imagination as an anthropological a priori for considering social imagination; finally, the last subsection, which also serves as a conclusion, justifies why, given the purpose of the study, it is more appropriate to consider the concept of modernization in the context of the social imagination rather than as an ideology. The concept of ideology refers to political bias, to the question of truth and a critique of power discourse. In contrast, the concept of social imagination is politically neutral and refers to a cultural background of politics. It thus circumvents Man nheim’s paradox by being conceptualized as constitutive of a political order.

How Loyalty Trials Shape Allegiance to Political Order

“Loyalty trials” are common to a range of conflict settings, with consequences that range from harassment to imprisonment, torture, or death. Yet, they have received little if any attention as a general phenomenon in studies of state repression, civil war, or rebel governance, which focus on particular behaviors that authorities use to put people on trial, such as dissent, defection, and resistance. Using a computational model and data on the German Democratic Republic and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we focus on the dynamics of “loyalty trials” held to identify enemy collaborators—the interaction between expectations, perceptions, and behavior. We use our framework to explore the conditions under which trials result in widespread defection, as in the German Democratic Republic, or in conformity as illustrated by our study of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The polarizing nature of loyalty trials and the propensity to over- or under-identify threats to political order have notable implications for democratic and non-democratic societies alike.

Историософские аспекты отечественного народовластия: статья 1

The article represents the first part of the planned work on the historiosophical consideration of domestic de-mocracy. It reflects the methodological issues concerning the definition of this concept, as well as the general specific features of the Russian political genesis, the component of which is the democracy. The authors ad-here to an expanded interpretation of democracy, seeing here as the key criterion the weight of the initiative of the grassroots – in fact, it acts as a basic circumstance, albeit intertwined in some cases with the initiatives of the central government. The three most common forms of democracy are stated: corporate, local government and social movements. Domestic political genesis is characterized by the distancing of the supreme power from grassroots initiatives, which is largely due to a number of objective factors: natural-geographical, geopolit-ical, diffuse and the factor of intra-elite contradictions, which initiates competition in Russian history between two models of political order: polycentric and monocentric.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the New Path of Law

The contemporary accelerating changes in technology lead to drastictransformations in economy, social and political structures, as well as legal practice andthe very essence of law. The present research is a try to bring to the light the evolutionof industrial revolutions and realize the transformations and developments of law andlegal practice throughout the First, Second, Third and Fourth Industrial Revolutions.Taking into account the consequences of the previous industrial revolutions andthe ongoing nature of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the research defines somegeneral developments / paths in the law, especially the transformations in legal practice(Practical Perspective); transformations in teaching law (Educational Perspective) andtransformation in the essence and perception of law itself (Theoretical Perspective).Based on the research two possible social structures, with economic, political andlegal order, have been proposed: negative and positive.

A European Panorama on the Copyright Status of Stage Directors

The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions states outright in its guiding principles that culture is one of the main aspects of development, which is as important as its economic aspects, and which individuals and people have the fundamental right to participate in and enjoy. Theatrical productions are one of the best-selling forms of entertainment. From a cultural and artistic perspective, they are one of the oldest methods of expression which, in addition to self-expression, is also a mirror of the social and political order. The aim of this article is to present the theoretical, legislative, and jurisprudential positions on the copyright situation of the theatre director. The focus of the article is on the question of how the legal status of the theatre director is settled and regulated in different European legal systems. In several European countries there are no specific legal provisions on this matter. This article is organized as follows. First, the historical and cultural aspects of theatrical productions are introduced. After that, the most important copyright law features of dramatic works are reviewed, together with an overview of some European laws. In the core of the article, the current legal situation – and possible copyright law solutions for theatre directors – are elaborated.

Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Founding

The article examines the “foundings-beyond-origins” framework as proposed by An-gélica Bernal in her 2017 book, Beyond Origins: Rethinking Founding in a Time of Constitutional Democracy. While accepting Bernal’s arguments about the prevailing vision of founding a political order, she posits that the realities of power deauthorise political origins. This form of politics proposes a model of engagement between In-digenous Peoples (IPs), nations, tribes and communities and hegemonic political orders based on self-determination, autonomy, self-government and consent. These concepts are the cornerstones of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). At the heart of this politcs is the “axiom of indigenei-ty”, a proposition that bases political origins on populations, customs, territoriality and time. The fact that societies that existed prior to the founding of contemporary political orders have survived the realities of power gives meaning to the idea of indigeneity.

The Concept of Democracy in Simon Frank’s Philosophy of Liberal Conservatism

The article analyses the concept of democracy by a Russian philosopher Simon Frank. It considers the main features of the liberal-conservatism as they appear in the works of Petr Struve and Simon Frank. The main focus of the paper is on the evolution of Frank’s views on democracy. It is noted that Frank emphasised the need to combine democratic mechanisms of power with legal mechanisms for protecting the freedom of a person, as well as the dependence of democracy on the level of cultural and moral development of society. The paper demonstrates that Frank considered democracy not so much as an external political order, which inevitably turns out to be antinomic, but in the context of the basic principles of social life and, first of all, the principle of service (in a religious, Christian sense). The social life ontologically presupposes that the principle of democratic equality must be combined with the principles of hierarchism and aristocracy.

Saving the population in the paradigm of state legal sovereignty: norms, deviations, challenges, solutions

The study examines the content of demographic policy, the impact of the state of the population on ensuring state and legal sovereignty, reveals the role of such factors as natural population growth, its quantitative and qualitative characteristics, the country's ability to strengthen national cohesion and maintain independence in the conditions of aggravating interstate relations and the beginning of digitalization era. Russia's policy of reviving competitiveness and influencing the political world order relies not only on diplomatic, but also on other components of state sovereignty, which can be qualified as territorial, industrial, technological, legal, educational, cultural, informational, as well as other components, among which demographic sovereignty plays an important role. It is ensured by a strong social policy in the field of population conservation, its quantitative and qualitative condition, as well as responsible regulation of migration processes.

SOME SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE GENESIS OF MODERN BELGIAN POLITICS

This article discusses the symbolism of the year 1830 in the transition from the old political order to the establishment and gradual consolidation of the modern Belgian state. Modern constitutionalism was characterized by the struggle against monarchical absolutism and the concentration of political power in the hands of a single person. In addition, it supported the respect of civil rights and liberties, the individual being at the center of liberal philosophy, along with the idea of a representative government, the separation of powers in the state and the supremacy of the rule of law. The spread of the revolutionary wave from 1830 throughout the country opened a new period in the history of Belgium, in which the ideas of centralizing the state and asserting national independence merged with the urgency to give a direction to the state by choosing the representative monarchy as a form of governance and with the introduction of the Senate as an intermediate power. By analyzing the Belgian deputies’ speeches, this article aims to make an introduction in the way the deputies imagined the construction of the state and to advance the idea of a mutual trajectory of the Belgian society in accordance with the young European nations.

The Syrian Crisis and Iran's Mideast Politics. Global and Regional Dimensions

After the ‘Arab Spring’, globalization actively shapes local attempts to build a new political order in the Middle East. The impact of global processes on nations and state-building has become more evident today. These processes affect the transformation of Middle Eastern states in terms of changes in the scope of the state's sovereign powers as a result of protracted crisis. Given the current political situation in the region, the mutual influence of countries has increased. The processes of institutionalization of foreign relations in the region are closely connected with the unfolding globalization in the Middle East.

Banditry and Insecurity: Are There Ungoverned Spaces in Nigeria

Many towns and villages in Nigeria have been experiencing bandits activities, vis-à-vis kidnapping, armed robbery, murder, rape, cattle-rustling, and violent actions in recent years. These activities have continued to escalate despite the presence of security agencies such as – the Nigerian Army, the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, the Nigerian Police, the State Security Service, the National Intelligence Agency, and the Defence Intelligence among others. The unabated bandits' activities in part of the country depict a picture of ungoverned spaces, which suggests that there are territories that are experiencing a vacuum of political order. The study for that reason examines the connections between banditry and the ungoverned spaces, as well as, analyses the effects of bandits' activities on Nigeria and Nigerians. Using the discourse analysis that relies on secondary sources, the paper argues that the inability to govern some territories adequately in Nigeria has created a vacuum for bandits’ activities to thrive.

The Formation Of Islamic Parties In Post-Independence Indonesia

This study aims to explain the formation of Islamic parties that were formed after independence, and to look at the political reality of Islamic parties from the Old Order to the New Order. Islamic political position in that period was relatively weak. Islamic parties at that time it was a minority political group in state institutions. As a minority group, they only play a driving role in giving an Islamic style to political developments in Indonesia as a logical consequence that must be accepted in the reality of political history. Only adapting to the new political system and order under one command. By using the literature study method, this study shows that; (1) Islamic parties that were established after independence (2) Dynamics of post-independence socio-cultural conditions (3) Post-independence government systems (4) Da'wah strategies carried out by Islamic parties (5) Challenges faced by Islamic parties when post-independence (6) Figures and Ulama' who influenced the post-independence period. This study is important to add to sources of study of Islamic history in Indonesia, especially the scarcity of themes regarding the formation of post-independence Islamic parties.

Et finsmedverksted fra tidlig vikingtid på Sømme ved Hafrsfjord

In Norway, Viking-age non-ferrous metal working is primarily related to trading sites like Kaupang in Vestfold. The remains of a workshop at Sømme in Rogaland demonstrates, however, that this kind of craft also took place within agrarian contexts in this period. Findings from the workshop reveal that the smiths worked with different kind of metals, used various techniques and were highly skilled. It is argued that the region must have been an important nodal point for long distance connections, especially to the British Isles, and that the metalworkers got their raw materials through these connections. Shortly after 900 AD the workshop was abandoned. At the same time, Harald Fairhair gained control of the western part of Norway, and there was a sudden disappearance of Insular objects in the region. A new political order and the lack of raw materials could be major reasons for the abandonment of the workshop.

The Ambiguity of Betrayal: Contesting Myths of Heroic Resistance in South Africa

Hegemonic practices of memorialization rely on narratives of heroic, morally untainted resistance, which cast traitors as the aberrant “other.” This paper draws on Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity and historical and sociological accounts of betrayal to trouble this binary and construct a framework for memorializing betrayal in its ambiguity—in relation to the everyday reality of tragic dilemmas that resisters face. I show how attentiveness to the ambiguity of betrayal can help rethink heroic resistance myths beyond the exclusionary logic pitting moral purity against the depravity of treason—and warn against the reproduction of systematic practices of othering in the new political order. The paper develops the political relevance of this theoretical exploration via the example of a South African novel, The Texture of Shadows, examining how its insights into the ambiguity of betrayal challenge the myths of heroic resistance in South Africa.

Hybrid Regimes and Political (Dis)Order

This paper studies the concept of “hybrid regimes”, not so much in defining and authenticating their functionality but, above all, to exhibit them as so-called “partial” constitutional concepts. Articulating the tensions, divergences, and antagonisms characteristic of these regimes, as well as highlighting the blurring boundaries between democratic systems and authoritarianism “with adjectives”, emphasizes the importance of the examined issues. The author introduces an alternative conceptualization and typology of hybrid regimes and a configurational approach. Instead of placing political regimes on a linear continuum – from authoritarianism to democracy – multidimensional solutions facilitating an alternative typology of the analyzed concepts have been exposed. The configuration approach, however, provides an analytically valuable way to evaluate and integrate hybrid regimes with other classification schemes. Such innovations, therefore, help alleviate conceptual confusion in the literature. Moreover, deepening the understanding of the concept of hybrid regimes, along with emphasizing its conceptual ambiguities and complexity – especially concerning the “politically correct” discourse on the current problems of fragile and politically unstable states – is necessary to better understand the complex and confusing nature of modern regimes of power frequently operating in the most politically unstable regions of the contemporary world.

“Lawless Coal Miners” and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883

The Lingan strike of 1882–83 was the last in a series of strikes over a two-decade period on Cape Breton Island’s Sydney coalfield. With the use of untapped local sources, this article reconstructs the history of this understudied strike within a broader history of social relations on the coalfield. The migration of labourers from the island’s backland farms – predominantly from Highland enclave settlements – to the coal mines played a decisive role in shaping the era’s new coal mining villages and the character of social conflict. By the early 1880s, structural change associated with National Policy industrialism was eroding the old authority of the coal operators, and miners embraced the Provincial Workmen’s Association (pwa) to advance their claims in long-standing and highly localized contestations. Ultimately the coal communities themselves imposed the emergent trade unionism. The Lingan strike marked a transition to a new political order on the coalfield, structured by the place of the coal mines within the wider Cape Breton countryside and built upon a powerful localism and moral economy that recast the public sphere and the miners’ place in it.